Cursed. England George Allan

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СКАЧАТЬ cover!” commanded Briggs. “Down, everybody, along the rail! Mr. Wansley, down with you and your men. Get down!”

      Indifferent to all peril for himself, Briggs turned toward the companion.

      “Captain,” the doctor began again. “Your boot’s full of blood. Let me bandage – ”

      Briggs flung a snarl at him and strode to the companion.

      “Below, there!” he shouted.

      “Aye, aye, sir!” rose the voice of one of the foremast hands.

      “Get that wench up here! The yellow girl! Bring her up – an’ look alive!”

      “Captain,” the doctor insisted, “I’ve got to do something for that gash in your leg. Not that I love you, but you’re the only man that can save us. Sit down here, sir. You’ll bleed to death where you stand!”

      Something in Filhiol’s tone, something in a certain giddiness that was already reaching for the captain’s heart and brain, made him obey. He sat down shakily on deck beside the after-companion. In the midst of all that turmoil, all underlaid by the slow, grinding scrape of the keel on the sand-bar, the physician performed his duty.

      With scissors, he shore away the cloth. A wicked slash, five or six inches long, stood redly revealed.

      “Tss! Tss!” clucked Filhiol. “Lucky if it’s not poisoned.”

      “Mr. Gascar!” shouted the captain. “Go below!” Briggs jerked a thumb downward at the cabin, whence sounds of a struggle, mingled with cries and animal-like snarls, had begun to proceed. “Bring up the jug o’ rum you’ll find in my locker. Serve it out to all hands. And, look you, if they need a lift with the girl, give it; but don’t you kill that wench. I need her, alive! Understand?”

      “Yes, sir,” Gascar replied, and vanished down the companion. He reappeared with a jug and a tin cup.

      “They’re handlin’ her all right, sir,” he reported. “Have a drop, sir?”

      “You’re damned shoutin’, I will!” And the captain reached for the cup. Gascar poured him a stiff drink. He gulped it and took another. “Now deal it out. There’ll be plenty more when we’ve sunk the yellow devils!”

      He got to his feet, scorning further care from Filhiol, and stood there wild and disheveled, with one leg of his trousers cut off at the knee and with his half-tied bandages already crimsoning.

      “Rum for all hands, men!” he shouted. “And better than rum – my best wine, sherry, champagne – a bottle a head for you, when this shindy’s over!”

      Cheers rose unevenly. Gascar started on his round with the jug. Even the wounded men, such as could still raise their voices, shouted approval.

      “Hold your fire, men,” the captain ordered. “Let ’em close in – then blow ’em out o’ the water!”

       CHAPTER X

      KUALA PAHANG

      The doctor, presently finishing with Briggs, turned his attention to the other injured ones. At the top of the companion now stood the captain with wicked eyes, as up the ladder emerged the two seamen with the struggling, clawing tiger-cat of a girl.

      The cruel beating the captain had given her the night before had not yet crushed her spirit. Neither had the sickness of the liquor he had forced her to drink. Bruised, spent, broken as she was, the spirit of battle still dwelt in the lithe barbarian. That her sharp nails had been busy to good effect was proved by the long, deep gashes on the faces and necks of both seamen. One had been bitten on the forearm. For all their strength, they proved hardly more than a match for her up the narrow, steep companion. Their blasphemies mingled with the girl’s animal-like cries. Loudly roared the booming bass of the captain:

      “Up with the she-dog! I’ll teach her something – teach ’em all something, by the Judas priest! Up with her!”

      They dragged her out on deck, up into all that shouting and firing, that turmoil and labor and blood. And as they brought her up a plume of smoke jetted from the bows of the proa. The morning air sparkled with the fire-flash of that ancient brass cannon. With a crashing shower of splinters, a section of the rail burst inward. Men sprawled, howling. But a greater tragedy – in the eyes of these sailormen – befell: for a billet of wood crashed the jug to bits, cascading the deck with good Medford. And, his hand paralyzed and tingling with the shock, Gascar remained staring at the jug-handle still in his grip and at the flowing rum on deck.

      Howls of bitter rage broke from along the rail, and the rifles began crackling. The men, cheated of their drink, were getting out of hand.

      “Cease firing, you!” screamed Briggs. “You’ll fire when I command, and not before. Mr. Bevans! Loaded again?”

      “All loaded, sir. Say when!”

      “Not yet! Lay a good aim on the proa. We’ve got to blow her out o’ the water!”

      “Aye, aye, sir!” And Bevans patted the rusty old piece. “Leave that to me, sir!”

      Briggs turned again to the struggling girl. A thin, evil smile drew at his lips. His face, under its bronze of tan, burned with infernal exultation.

      “Now, my beauty,” he mocked, “now I’ll attend to you!”

      For a moment he eyed Kuala Pahang. Under the clear, morning light, she looked a strange and wild creature indeed – golden-yellow of tint, with tangled black hair, and the eyes of a trapped tigress. Bruises wealed her naked arms and shoulders, souvenirs of the captain’s club and fist. Her supple body was hardly concealed by her short skirt and by the tight Malay jacket binding her lithe waist and firm, young breast.

      Briggs exulted over her, helpless and panting in the clutch of the two foremast-hands. “To the rail with her!” he ordered.

      “What you goin’ to do, sir?” asked one of the men, staring. “Heave her over?”

      Briggs menaced him with clenched fist.

      “None o’ your damned business!” he shouted. “To the rail with her! Jump, afore I teach you how!”

      They dragged her, screeching, to the starboard rail. All the time they had to hold those cat-clawed hands of hers. From side to side she flung herself, fighting every foot of the way. Briggs put back his head and laughed at the rare spectacle. Twice or thrice the sailors slipped in blood and rum upon the planking, and once Kuala Pahang all but jerked free from them. At the capstan, only the pistols of the three white guards held her kinsmen back from making a stampede rush; and not even the pistols could silence among them a menacing hum of rage that seethed and bubbled.

      “Here, you!” shouted Briggs. “Mahmud Baba, you yellow cur, come here!”

      Mahmud loosed his hold on the capstan-bar and in great anguish approached.

      “Yas, sar?” whined he. The lean, brown form was trembling. The face had gone a jaundiced color. “I come, sar.”

      Briggs leveled his revolver at the Malay. Unmindful of the spattering bullets, he spoke with deliberation.

      “Son of a saffron dog,” said he, “you’re going to tell this СКАЧАТЬ